


from the past, present

by raffinit



Category: Warcraft - All Media Types, World of Warcraft
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Character Death, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-28
Updated: 2019-01-28
Packaged: 2019-10-18 04:28:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17573879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raffinit/pseuds/raffinit
Summary: War is a vicious cycle made no less vicious by death.





	1. Jaina

**Author's Note:**

> Let this be a WARNING:
> 
> MAJOR character death ahead. Not ideal for those in darker headspaces at the moment or those of you who are still riding the high of #smashgate2k19

**JAINA**

 

\------------

She wasn’t looking when the hammer struck.

They had been as they always were; back-to-back, guard-to-guard as they moved in a seamless dance around the battlefield, smiting down enemies that seemed to double with each slain comrade.

They had done this a thousand times over. This was a dance that moved them with each beat of their hearts; with each pulse of the Undead one inside her. A wild rush of magic shooting across the field in vibrant blue, twining with the electric hum of her arcane purple. They moved, as always, as one.

Today, the music changed.

A rush of grunts separated them for an instant, masses of snarling bodies encased in armour, and Sylvanas swung around to meet them, bow pulled taut —

“No!”

It was the scream that startled her the most; the mass of limbs shoving her aside as the shadow of the hammer came down upon her. Sylvanas rolled to her knees, a lifetime of training was now instinct, and she fired straight and true, her arrow lodging deep into muscle and bone between its burly shoulder and neck. When she lifted her eyes, they widened with growing horror. She looked up to see the flurry of blue and white, to hear the sickening crunch of bone caving inwards, to see the spill of red across the embroidered sigil of the anchor —

The brute was dead before it hit the ground.

Jaina stumbled forward, eyes wide on her pale face. Tears brimming those beautiful eyes, spilling down her freckled cheeks in a wicked mockery of Sylvanas’.

She lunged forward, catching Jaina into her arms as they both crumbled to the earth. “No, no, no,” she cried, cradling her wife close, bracing the limp weight of her —

Jaina’s voice came strained and reedy, her hand coming up to grasp weakly at Sylvanas’ shoulder as she wheezed through each breath. “S-Sylvanas —”

“You fool. You fool!” she hissed, a frantic, roiling terror building in her chest. It had been years, so many years, since this feeling had come to haunt her. “Why did you do that? _Why —_ ”

“I’m sorry,” Jaina rasped, her lips smeared red. One trembling hand slid upwards to clasp the back of her neck. “Sylvanas —”

Sylvanas cradled her closer, cupping her cheek to wipe away the blood beading on her lip. “Don’t waste your strength. Just hold on for me. Hold on.” She hugged her close, her hand pressing desperately against the splay of red.

So much red. Why was there so much red?

She pulled her hand back, staring at the blood dripping from between her fingers.

Too much. There was just too much.

“My love,” Jaina said, but in her waning strength it came out a broken moan. “I’m so sorry. I’m so —”

“Dalah’surfal,” Sylvanas whispered, crushing her close, the raw ache in her voice reverberating in the space around them. “My heart. _Please_. Not yet. Not like this. _Please_.” She pressed her face into Jaina’s hair, sought the sweet scent of flowers and seabreeze, but all she could smell was blood.

Jaina’s breath was a ragged sigh, a stifled sound of her name on her lips. Her body sagged against Sylvanas and her hand fell limply from her shoulder, unmoving.

Jaina Proudmoore was gone.


	2. Sylvanas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "and death's pale flag is not advanced there"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH
> 
> Featuring the original plotline from 'threads of silk'

**SYLVANAS**

 

\----------

 

Sylvanas Windrunner had died more times in her lifetime than Jaina cared to think about. They never talked about it, didn’t want or need to, but in the span of time that she had been married to the Banshee Queen, Jaina had experienced enough of each death to never ask again.

Death, unfortunately, came for everyone.

“Keep firing!” Sylvanas snarled, nocking another arrow. “Hold them back where they stand!”

Tensions between the factions had come to a head. Old rivalries and distrust had spilt over into more war, more bloodshed. The union between the Banshee Queen and Lord Admiral of Kul Tiras had been the turning point — how could they trust a Warchief who shared a bed with their greatest enemy? How could they know that the Lord Admiral wasn’t succumbing to the influences of the Void? Restless whispers among the factions began to spread like flames across the land when the binding of their marriage began to show its effects.

The Warchief had, though faint and flickering, a beating heart.

And its beat matched the one pounding in Jaina’s chest.

If one fell, so too would the other.

Lines were drawn in the sand when Azshara rose from the seas. She didn’t care much for what Genn or Anduin had to say about her marriage to Sylvanas; only knew that it was Sylvanas who stepped forth first when she made a plea to man the front lines of Kul Tiras.

“You’re heading towards certain death,” Genn had snarled.

Sylvanas had simply taken her hand, squeezing it. “Then we will face death and walk backwards into hell together.”

The nagas came upon them in a wave the likes of which they had never seen before. They couldn’t understand what it was until they saw the swarm of Azshara’s forces marching on the shores of Kul Tiras. N’Zoth had come to stake his claim.

The cold hand of fear took hold of Jaina’s spine and gripped tight. “You should portal back to Lordaeron. Warn them,” she called urgently, drawing up a shield as the next volley of arrows flew around them. “They won’t stop until the whole of Azeroth is underwater.”

“I will not run from death,” Sylvanas said, eyes cold and hard as she fired another wave of Whispering Death. “And I will not let it touch _you_.”

So they fought.

“Jaina.” Sylvanas turned to her suddenly, gripping her arm with a hold so tight it stung. Her face was grim, brows pulled low and eyes burning a fire that was steadily growing. “Jaina, you need to sever the tie —”

She was already shaking her head, tugging her arm from her wife’s grip, but Sylvanas tightened her hold.

“You must,” Sylvanas murmured, low and harsh. “I will not let you fall with me. There must be one of us left to lead.”

“This is _our_ fight. Our last stand. We go together or not at all,” Jaina cried, but Sylvanas was already pulling away, unravelling the ring she wore around her neck. Her breath hitched, eyes wide —

Sylvanas unbound the threads around the ring, a spark of magic hissing into the air. “Then _I_ release you. I unchain you from this union —”

“Sylvanas —”

Their eyes met. The last of the threads fell away as time seemed to slow. “I free you —”

The spear threw Sylvanas back several feet. It drove through her with a wet crunch, splitting skin and meat and bone like a knife through paper. Jaina dropped to her knees at the same time Sylvanas did, her world funnelling down into that instant of agony. She could feel it in her own chest, could feel the wrench and seize of her lungs struggling to breathe as its chambers were filled with blood.

Sylvanas’ name died on her lips with a choke. She tried to crawl towards her wife, breaths coming out strained and wheezing, but the distance seemed unfathomable.

Sylvanas was kneeling still, her hands grasping the spear’s broken shaft that protruded from her chest. She stared down at it for a moment, confused, before her blazing red eyes slid over to Jaina. Her eyes widened at the sight, and Jaina reached out weakly with a pulse of magic —

It did not reach.

“No,” Jaina gasped. “ _No_.”

The nagas were closing in. She could smell wet scales and briny waters, hear their guttural snarls. She watched as Sylvanas lifted her trembling hands and held the ring between them. It glowed and thrummed with so much arcane that the room pulsed.

When Sylvanas spoke again, her voice was thin and tremoring. “I return your heart to you.”

She broke the ring in half.

Time ground to a halt. The room was swallowed in a wave of arcane, the burst of it spilling outwards in a low hum before curling back inwards. Jaina felt its coils caressing over her limbs, winding into her body and pulling outwards. She felt the pain bleed away with it, like the waves pulling away from the shore, fading away into nothingness.

When the light fell away and she could see once more, Jaina looked across the room. The crumpled form of her wife laid sprawled on her side, barely clinging to the last vestiges of life. Jaina crawled to her frantically, all but flinging herself across the room as she gathered Sylvanas in her arms, stroking back the hood to stroke her hair.

“You fool,” she hissed, and tears were already blinding her. “You fool, how could you? How could you do that?”

Sylvanas reached out to trace the path of a tear running down Jaina’s cheek; her purple skin was nearly grey. “A fool in love,” she whispered, and the echoes in her chest were nothing more than hollow sound. “Forgive me, my heart. I —”

Her face twisted into a mask of agony and confusion. Her body went rigid, convulsing slightly as the fire in her eyes died away. Sylvanas’ hand fell away from her cheek, limp as the rest of her.

Jaina held onto her wife and screamed. Tides, but did she scream. No sound nor wail from a banshee could ever match the scream of the Lord Admiral as she cradled the dead body of Sylvanas Windrunner.

Banshee Queen.

Warchief.

Wife.

Gone.


End file.
